OLDER ROLES FOR WARNER BAXTER

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 19, 6 February 1937, Page 14

OLDER ROLES FOR WARNER BAXTER

That pertinent question "Is a Great Lover too old at 40?" has been answered by at least one of the "overforties," Warner Baxter. He declares that he is. Romancb and youth for him are dead. The devil-may-eare, handsome Cisco Kid has vanished, never, he is afraid, to return. Which doesn't mean, of course, that Warner Baxter himself has ended his screen career. Don't gev alarmed about that. Merely that a little adjustment has been necessary. For a certain time these great lovers, apparently can conceal the lines — though frankly one would never accuse Warner Baxter of doing this — but then, if they are frank, there must come a stago in their eareers when honesty compels them to admit that as Great Lovers their day has finished. As Warner Baxter himself so frankly puts it: "For years I've quivered in terror of the time when I, like every other romantic male star, must face the inevitable gulf which lies between the colourful portrayals that bring pleasure and maybe a little hilirt-fluttering to women, and those roles that are just character portrayals. I've seen others confronted with that gulf and, unable to face it, go out — and I don't mind admitting that I've been- scared when that inevitability would stare me in the face. • "Yet what has happened?- Now that it is here, now that I have had the courage to stand up to it, I feel as if a load has been removed from my shoulders. I feel freer and happier than I've been for months. I feel as if I can concentrate on the portrayers. similar to that in my last two pictures, "The Koad to Glory" and "White Hunter," without worryiug. "Maybe I have lost, youth and romance but — and this is vitally important — I have found myself. And isn't that worth something? So often in my films I have felt that I have been jyst Warner Baxter. A different hat, maybe; a different nationality. But always, under the sarface, Warner Baxter was more pronounced than the actual character. "Now I can be bearded and morose without having to worry what those who have so kindly followed my fortunes through the years will think. Now I am free. And really that is a heclc of a load off a fellow's mind. No more good looks and lady-killing. Just plain, honest-to-goodness inen. Whew! what a relief. "